As Urban Wildfire Approaches Fast, Los Angeles Jewish Institutions Close
A house pictured Wednesday in Los Angeles. Image by Getty
(JTA) — Los Angeles-area synagogues and Jewish institutions closed in the wake of a major fire, dubbed the Skirball Fire after the Jewish cultural center that is in its path.
Leo Baeck Temple, Stephen Wise Temple, American Jewish University’s Familian Campus and the Skirball Cultural Center all were closed due to the fire, the Los Angeles Jewish Journal reported. The institutions’ Torah scrolls were removed for safekeeping, according to the report.
The Skirball Fire is one of several fires burning in southern California since Monday. More than 230,000 people have had to leave their homes in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti declared a local state of emergency in response to the Skirball Fire, requesting state and federal assistance. California Gov. Jerry Brown also declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
The fire also caused the closing of the Los Angeles Eruv, which uses fences and phone lines affected by the fire to define the public area needed to allow Orthodox Jews to carry items outdoors on Shabbat, according to the Jewish Journal.
The Skirball Center noted in a post on Facebook that although the fire has been dubbed the Skirball Fire, the center has not sustained any damage.
Contact Ari Feldman at feldman@forward.com or on Twitter @aefeldman
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
